Prime Minister Rishi Sunak warned Iran-backed Huthis that Britain would stage new military action if the Yemeni rebels keep attacking shipping in the Red Sea.

"We are not seeking a confrontation," he told parliament hours after a second round of US-UK strikes.

"We urge the Huthis and those who enable them to stop these illegal and unacceptable attacks.

"But if necessary, the United Kingdom will not hesitate to respond in self-defence. We cannot stand by and allow these attacks to go unchallenged," Sunak added.

Mounting maritime security threats off Yemen's coast have stalled work on scrapping a decrepit oil tanker, officials have told AFP, jeopardising a rare success story in the war-torn country.

The FSO Safer, a 48-year-old vessel with a corroding hull, was for years described as a "ticking time bomb", going unserviced as fighting raged in Yemen and fears grew that a leak or on-board explosion could release its 1.14 million barrels of crude into the Red Sea.

Iraqi no-frills carrier Fly Baghdad has condemned Washington's imposition of sanctions, saying the US Treasury provided no proof of its allegation the airline had assisted Iran's Revolutionary Guards.

In a statement on Monday, the US slapped sanctions on Fly Baghdad and its CEO, Basheer Abdulkadhim Alwan al-Shabbani, accusing them of "providing assistance to the Quds Force", the foreign operations arm of the Revolutionary Guards, "by delivering material and personnel throughout the region" including weapons.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday praised Ivory Coast for choosing a less militarised approach to security, on a tour to rally African democracies as crises engulf the region and world.

Blinken was meeting separately with two key leaders on the same day -- Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara, a veteran leader who has won US praise for consolidating democracy, before heading to Abuja to see Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, elected last year on a platform of economic reforms.

Israelis on Tuesday mourned and demanded answers over the army's biggest single-day losses since ground operations in Gaza started amid growing pressure on the government to end the conflict.

Twenty-one of the 24 troops killed on Monday were reservists slain "when a squad of terrorists surprised the force" with fire from a rocket-propelled grenade, military spokesman Daniel Hagari said.

The army said the grenade hit a tank and two buildings they were trying to blow up.

The United States and Britain launched a second round of joint military strikes on Yemen's Huthis on Tuesday over their attacks on Red Sea shipping, as the Iran-backed rebels vowed to hit back.

The latest raids, heard by residents of the rebel-held capital Sanaa around midnight (2100 GMT), hit eight Huthi targets, a joint US-UK statement said, while the Huthis listed 18 strikes across their territory.

Iraq on Monday held a state funeral for 41 Yazidis killed by the Islamic State group in 2014 and recently identified by authorities after complex and lengthy DNA tests.

After seizing swathes of Iraq in 2014, IS jihadists carried out horrific massacres, including in the northern region of Sinjar where the Kurdish-speaking Yazidi minority has long been rooted.

The group targeted the ethno-religious minority, systematically killing thousands of men and forcing women into sexual slavery.

Hundreds of mourners gathered Monday in Tehran for the funerals of Revolutionary Guards killed in Syria, in what Iran called an Israeli strike.

It was the latest incident adding to regional tensions and fears of wider conflagration during the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

The strike in Damascus on Saturday killed five members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the military force said. Iranian media later reported the victims included the group's intelligence chief for Syria, and his deputy.

Palestinians sheltered from intense fighting in southern Gaza where communications were cut again on Monday, as pressure mounted on Israel for a solution involving long-sought Palestinian statehood.

Mahdi Antar, 21, sought refuge at Al-Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis, Gaza's main southern city which has become the epicentre of the war between Hamas militants and Israeli soldiers now in its fourth month.

"The situation is terrifying. Tonight and today are very difficult, bombing and shooting. I do not know what to do," he said.

EU foreign ministers on Monday pressed Israel on an eventual two-state solution with the Palestinians after the war in Gaza, at meetings with the top diplomats from the two sides and key Arab states in Brussels.

The surprise Hamas attack on October 7 on Israel and the subsequent devastating military response from Israel has plunged the Middle East into fresh turmoil and sparked fears of a broader conflict.